Modi, Italian PM release stamps on Indo-Italy ties

New Delhi, Oct 30: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his visiting Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni on Monday released commemorative stamps to mark 70 years of diplomatic relationship between two countries. Even as both the nations have been maintaining cultural and economic relations for decades, in modern times, diplomatic relations between India and the Italian Republic were established in 1947. First Prime Minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru visited Italy in 1953 while President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro was the first Italian head of state to visit India in February 1995. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi visited India in February 2005, Romano Prodi was the the last Italian Prime Minister to visit India in February 2007. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also visited Italy to attend the L'Aquila G8/G5 Summit in July 2009. However, diplomatic ties between India and Italy had suffered minor hit following the February 2012 firing by two Italian marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, from MV Enrica Lexie, killing two Indian fishermen off Kerala. Mr Gentiloni is on a state visit to India at the invitation of Mr Modi. "Coming after a gap of more than a decade, the visit is aimed at strengthening the bilateral political and economic relations between the two countries," the MEA said in a statement last week. During British Raj, Mahatma Gandhi accepted an invitation to visit Rome in 1931 and also met the then-Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. The Italian leader hailed Gandhi as a "genius and a saint". The association between two countries also goes back to the days of Marco Polo, who in his popular travelogue 'The Travels of Marco Polo' described the life and customs in India at the end of the 13th century. UNI